Forum Replies Created
Mark,
As Richard said be careful of those who advertise on here to spot properties and line theer pockets in Us, there is an awful lot of it going on and it isn’t a good deal. Chances are that they are hooked up with a local company that pick up properties dirt cheap slap on a coat of paint and then mark them up 50%. The houses are then sold at so called retail you get charged by the “spotter” agents and he also gets a fat referral fee for the deal from the US company. This is not spotting this is the gravy train and it seems to be rife around here.
Spotters are supposed to find you good undervalued deals and I know for a fact that most of the spotters down here that are working the US are just feeding the lambs to the slaughter.
I don’t come on this site much but when I do I am surprised that certain posters can advertise as much as they want and others cannot.
If you are buying houses in buffalo etc you should be looking for a renovated property in a decent area with a gross yield of 25% and no spotting fee. There are other ozzie guys that are doing flips etc and selling good properties to investors at those yields and higher, they don’t charge spotters fee either. They work hard they get properties they renovate them and then make a small profit when they onsell not 50% in a couple of weeks. So be careful of those that advertise spotting services on this forum as there is absolutely no gauarantee that you are getting value for money.
pinotcat, have you accounted for buying costs and loan costs in the $50 +ve cashflow per week ?
Mic, the latest National Association of Realtor Median House Price Reports has Buffalo rising by 1.6%over the last 12 months. I thought that is better than this can you post the summary of the report that predicts steady growth?
Hey that is my hand picked investement team !! the one on the left is my realtor, the middle is my property manager and the one on the left is my attorney….
Don & Liz, its just like the Brady Bunch but hey at least they will stay tenants forever
Wow nice reading I like coming back to this forum great article on flipping if the cop from Boston got screwed what chance do you have if you are a a gardener from Melbourne you would have to have rocks for brains if you bought of ebay. I am doing okay in good old Buffalo and know some others that are to we are just plain old buy and hold investors looking out for each other. My advise is go there yourself and buy of the market and make low ball offers the sellers are very negotiable. The problem with the buying promoted on here is that you end up paying to much for the houses with all of the layers of profit, referral fees and commissions added to the price. The houses are much cheaper than you think you would be mad not to buy undervalue as it is a buyers market I was looking at a duplex for $41,000 and got an inspection report that identified about 3,000 worth of work I went off the deal and the vendor came back and dropped there price to $30,000 cash its the Brady Bunch alright. Watch out for things like rental guarantees as this stops when you get a tenant and they might not be the best tenant and if they don’t pay the rent it will take you about two months to evict and say a month for a new one and then the property manager will charge you one months rent to find a new tenant that is four months…33%!!! my property manager reckons the months rent letting fee is extortion he charges $125 letting fee and insists on vacant possession and will renegotiate with existing tenant if suitable on new lease, so far the money is coming in, have a good lender and sitting back raising funds for another cheapie…and watching the interest grow even though it is the good the bad and the ugly
Quote:Originally posted by Rikky:Besides the couple of people making money from other people , does anyone have any good storys about the amout of cash flow they are making from up state new york.
Plaese don’t answer if you are bird dogging or flipping or arrangeing finance or getting kick backs, I would like to hear from average investors.
I spoke directly with Steve on this subject and his comments were interesting.Rick,
You have made a good point here about kick backs and referral fees. I am an average investor investing in Buffalo and have spent a lot of time and effort getting set up. I have seen evidence of deals offered to investors that are probably inclusive of add on fees and kick backs and have managed to do far better on my own hard work. The way I see it is the cost of getting set up is less than the extra cost you pay for spotting fees and referrals which are probably added to the cost. Once you are set up then you can continue to do well. I can tell you that there are Australian investors including myself doing okay with buy and hold but I guess they are for the most part relatively private about there business. The figures posted by OZI are about right and also Bardon correctly points out that water usage, snow and lawns cost money as well. Last time I was up I spent some time with an English lady who was closing on eight single family homes she reckons there are plane loads of UK investors about to descend. The lending is hard but no where as expensive as the figures mentioned here you can get 75% LVR at 6.2%rate with 3-4% costs. Some level headed US investors have set up there and they are predicting high growth in 5 years they also say that rents will rise as well, I hope they are right.
Also for your info I have posted on this web site before warning about two tier systems in Buffalo where Australians are buying houses through third parties far above the market price.
The email deal I seen is also selling on yield, I dont think the rents are overstated but whether the purchase price is inflated for Australians is the question
parkdog,
Here is the heads up be very very careful if you are going to buy property in the US via third parties and the like. There are a lot of Australians buying property right now in the US at inflated prices that locals wouldn’t pay its the old two thier system. They dont know that they have paid to much and think they have actually done well but will be in for a shock if they tried to sell in a hurry. Never buy cash unless you have a condition that you are buying subject to an independent appraisal you can get one done on your behalf. At the very least make sure you have a list of comparabale sales as this will go a long way to minimising your chances of paying to much.
Last one from me on this one busy packing. This is free information from a local agent who has worked with Hunt Real Estate in the area for a very long time. But as Muppet said be wary of people offering information for free. I am going to meet up with him on Tuesday and take it from there.
Both sides of the story I sent an agent in the Us samples of the deals that are being emailed around over here to buy of of these guys from buffalo that were in Australia selling houses recently. Some key points that came back were
He said that a buyer does not incur any additional fees other than closing and inspection and that I should stick to the one agent in town as they can broker any deal that is listed on the market another agent also told me this and wanted me to work exclusively with them
The buyers agent should only get his commission in the sale and that is split with the sellers agent and comes out the purchase price and is not added on the seller pays these fees ie no extra fee
Questioned the legality of charging extra fee and said that the guys in buffalo should not be doing that unless it is included in the purchase price
If you were going to pay an extra fee then you would expect to be getting a really good find, 60% of appraised value etc Buffalo is a buyers market there are plenty of houses for sale he said ask them how much they paid for the house Its not like California where guys actually scout the streets to find special deals
Always buy of the market that way you know that you are not getting an out of towner price there is a price for locals and a price for out of towners typically you will get a good rental property in a good location at around 90% of its listed price pay around 40K for a duplex with three bedrooms in each unit.
So that it from me I am going over to find out for myself. Hopefully will post when I get back.
Quiggles, yes I have seen this post before and I should add that it was informative and helpful I also read API article and then after checking out that site posted yesterday noticed that you have posted on nyccashflow to.
I am going to extend my stay and go to Philladelphia with a group form NYC they are getting killer deals there it might be better than Buffalo and the guy said that loans are easier there than NYS.
also what about the deals on ebay they are astonishing I never thought that there would be so many a lot of them have existing tennants my agent says be careful but has said that he will come with me when I go to view them next week no harm in looking I suppose.
I got an email from another ozzie guy who says that there are some bad deals on ebay but some of them are quite good he said that lots of investors that are selling off portfolios have started using ebay.
is anyone else using ebay other than Bardon who posted yesterday?
Is there such a thing as a minimum yield that I should be aware of as the yileds there seem very high on the other post you were targeting 30% I have done my projections on this yield. I understand that a 20% yield in the US is equivalent to a 10% yield in NZ as the owenership costs and finance is much higher that is why I am wary of adding on spotter commisions as the costs are a very high percentage of the total cost up to 10% this has a significant impact on the yield.
Westan,
Thanks for your PM offering support to my friend as it is the same guys. I am sure that they will take you up on it.I only posted to make the point to Muppet and in support of quiggles that buying is the easy part and it is debatable if you need to pay someone to help you with the easy part and in doing so you aren’t any further ahead.
I am new to this spotting business and this website but as far as I can gather the person at the end has to pay higher than the market price for a house as the supplier has already marked it up to cover commission and then the spotter also gets a fee. Sure its good if you don’t want to buy off the market but if you are talking about 2-4 houses then that would be far more than it would cost to go out and buy of the market so you would have a 10k start. What happens if you have to sell you will loose all the fees as they are an extra. So I am not sure how far the commissions go does Muppet also get one for promoting your service or is he a friend or an existing client that can vouch for it and how does the Austrlian spotter inspect the property?
As Mabbot said not a lot of people here are actaully offering good info voluntarily except for one post yesterday which had some good websites that I have already made contacts with. So it was worthwhile looking here as I got a lead from that website so glad to have came here but I am very wary about who is offering services and what you get for your fee.
I will find out how hard it is as I am going out there tomorrow I have some agents and property managers lined up and a promising lead from a website that was posted yesterday I will let you all know when I get back in about two weeks.
Muppet,
I have been checking out the Buffalo deals recently and was speaking to a guy who is buying property out there he actually told me to look at this forum. He told me to be very careful and that he bought a house off of some guys in Buffalo who were both in ozzie recently selling houses and has had nothing but trouble with it. As quiggles says buying is the easy part.
after speaking with him I have decided to go out there myself and see what it is like.
